Baseball Joins Search for Abducted Major Leaguer

Kidnappings have plagued Venezuela in recent years and occasionally affected major league baseball players. Some of them have had family members taken away at gunpoint and held for ransom.

In what appears to be a first, however, a major league player has been abducted. On Wednesday night, Wilson Ramos, a catcher for the Washington Nationals, was taken by several men outside his parents’ house east of Valencia.

Ramos, 24, once a highly touted prospect, started more games at catcher last season than any other player on the Nationals. He hit 15 home runs, a respectable amount for a catcher playing in his first full season in the majors.